All Blog Posts Tagged 'wars' - Atheist Nexus2018-03-20T04:20:39Zhttp://atheistnexus.org/profiles/blog/feed?tag=wars&xn_auth=noReview: Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins by Garry Kasparovtag:atheistnexus.org,2018-03-19:2182797:BlogPost:27940852018-03-19T22:53:35.000ZRichard Lawrencehttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/RichLawrence
<p>Artificial Intelligence is a phrase that often promotes a strong reaction in a lot of people who hear it. There are the gloom and doom prognosticators who tell us that 'Judgement Day', the day the intelligent machines take over and decide we are more trouble than we are worth and wipe us out is near. There are also the overly optimistic prognosticators which tell us that the day AI will take over and we will enter a golden age of humanity beyond our wildest dreams is near. Kasparov charts a…</p>
<p>Artificial Intelligence is a phrase that often promotes a strong reaction in a lot of people who hear it. There are the gloom and doom prognosticators who tell us that 'Judgement Day', the day the intelligent machines take over and decide we are more trouble than we are worth and wipe us out is near. There are also the overly optimistic prognosticators which tell us that the day AI will take over and we will enter a golden age of humanity beyond our wildest dreams is near. Kasparov charts a course in between these two extremes using the extremely compelling example of his two matches against IBM's Deep Blue. He won the first and lost the second which was the first time a World Chess Champion was defeated by a chess engine. Kasparov uses these matches, his preparation and the preparation the IBM team employed, to paint an interesting picture of both machine and human intelligence. The conclusion he draws is that machine and human intelligence are complimentary to each other and machine intelligence enhances human intelligence to the point where mediocre chess players using chess engines can easily defeat an International Grand Master and this has, in fact, been done. Our future, according to Kasparov, is to embrace what the machines offer us and use them to augment our human intelligence. Throughout the book Kasparov makes the point that research into AI has shown that machines are good at the types of things humans are not and vice versa. Machines can analyze millions of positions per second while humans can only go 4-5 moves in the future, for instance. On the flip side, the human mind can see what tactics are worthwhile and which are not which makes the human mind's search far more effective. The future, according to Kasparov and backed up by real-world results in the chess world, is a synthesis of the two the end result of which is the enhancing of the human mind. If you are interested in AI, chess and the future of expert systems this is one book you'll want to read.</p>46 Atheist Quotestag:atheistnexus.org,2018-03-16:2182797:BlogPost:27940282018-03-16T14:16:10.000ZMaciej Matiaszowskihttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/mmatiasz
<ol>
<li>Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. — Edward Gibbon</li>
<li>Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? — Epicurus</li>
<li>George Bush says he speaks to god every day, and Christians love him for it. If George Bush said he spoke to…</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. — Edward Gibbon</li>
<li>Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? — Epicurus</li>
<li>George Bush says he speaks to god every day, and Christians love him for it. If George Bush said he spoke to god through his hair dryer, they would think he was mad. I fail to see how the addition of a hair dryer makes it any more absurd. — Sam Harris</li>
<li>Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man -- living in the sky -- who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do.. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time! ..But He loves you... and HE NEEDS MONEY! — George Carlin</li>
<li>Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. — Carl Sagan</li>
<li>A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. — Albert Einstein</li>
<li>Those who believe absurdities will commit atrocities. — Volatire</li>
<li>The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. — Benjamin Franklin</li>
<li>If God exists, I hope he has a good excuse. — Woody Allen</li>
<li>The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. — Mark Twain</li>
<li>Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one. — Richard Dawkins</li>
<li>Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o, and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have. — Penn Jillette</li>
<li>The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. — Richard Dawkins</li>
<li>Creation science has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be more destructive of that most. — Stephen Jay Gould</li>
<li>Phew I'm glad we came to our senses and worship a 2000 year old carpenter. — Bart Simpson</li>
<li>I'm an atheist and I thank God for it. — George Bernard Shaw</li>
<li>Isn't an agnostic just an atheist without balls? — Stephen Colbert</li>
<li>I'm a very hard-line, angry atheist. Yet I am fascinated by the concept of devotion. — Joss Whedon</li>
<li>Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods. — Chrisopher Hitchens</li>
<li>All thinking men are atheists. — Ernest Hemingway</li>
<li>For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us. — Charles Bukowski</li>
<li>Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning... — C.S. Lewis</li>
<li>Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man? — Friedrich Nietzsche</li>
<li>I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day. — Douglas Adams</li>
<li>Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. — Isaac Asimov</li>
<li>To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world? — Christopher Hitchens</li>
<li>Atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do not exist, and that religion is either a mistake or a fraud. Atheism is an attitude, a frame of mind that looks at the world objectively, fearlessly, always trying to understand all things as a part of nature. — Emmett F. Fields</li>
<li>Atheism is a non-prophet organization. — George Carlin</li>
<li>One would go mad if one took the Bible seriously; but to take it seriously one must be already mad. — Aleister Crowley</li>
<li>About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough—and even miraculous enough if you insist—I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about? Depending on my mood, I sometimes but not always refrain from pointing out what a breathtakingly insulting and patronizing question this is. (It is on a par with the equally subtle inquiry: Since you don't believe in our god, what stops you from stealing and lying and raping and killing to your heart's content?) Just as the answer to the latter question is: self-respect and the desire for the respect of others—while in the meantime it is precisely those who think they have divine permission who are truly capable of any atrocity—so the answer to the first question falls into two parts. A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so. Whereas if one sought to define meaninglessness and futility, the idea that a human life should be expended in the guilty, fearful, self-obsessed propitiation of supernatural nonentities… but there, there. Enough. — Christopher Hitchens</li>
<li>If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t. And if that’s what God’s like, I wouldn’t worry about it. — Haruki Murakami</li>
<li>Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest. — Émile Zola</li>
<li>The more I learn about the universe, the less convinced I am that there's any sort of benevolent force that has anything to do with it, at all. — Neil deGrasse Tyson</li>
<li>There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the Dark Ages. — Ruth Hurmence Green</li>
<li>The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals. — Christopher Hitchens</li>
<li>To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid. — Christopher Hitchens</li>
<li>You won’t burn in hell. But be nice anyway. — Ricky Gervais</li>
<li>Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100,000. Richard Dawkins thinks maybe a quarter-of-a-million. I'll take 100,000. In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years. Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks 'That's enough of that. It's time to intervene,' and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don't lets appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there. This is nonsense. It can't be believed by a thinking person. Why am I glad this is the case? To get to the point of the wrongness of Christianity, because I think the teachings of Christianity are immoral. The central one is the most immoral of all, and that is the one of vicarious redemption. You can throw your sins onto somebody else, vulgarly known as scapegoating. In fact, originating as scapegoating in the same area, the same desert. I can pay your debt if I love you. I can serve your term in prison if I love you very much. I can volunteer to do that. I can't take your sins away, because I can't abolish your responsibility, and I shouldn't offer to do so. Your responsibility has to stay with you. There's no vicarious redemption. There very probably, in fact, is no redemption at all. It's just a part of wish-thinking, and I don't think wish-thinking is good for people either. It even manages to pollute the central question, the word I just employed, the most important word of all: the word love, by making love compulsory, by saying you MUST love. You must love your neighbour as yourself, something you can't actually do. You'll always fall short, so you can always be found guilty. By saying you must love someone who you also must fear. That's to say a supreme being, an eternal father, someone of whom you must be afraid, but you must love him, too. If you fail in this duty, you're again a wretched sinner. This is not mentally or morally or intellectually healthy. And that brings me to the final objection - I'll condense it, Dr. Orlafsky - which is, this is a totalitarian system. If there was a God who could do these things and demand these things of us, and he was eternal and unchanging, we'd be living under a dictatorship from which there is no appeal, and one that can never change and one that knows our thoughts and can convict us of thought crime, and condemn us to eternal punishment for actions that we are condemned in advance to be taking. All this in the round, and I could say more, it's an excellent thing that we have absolutely no reason to believe any of it to be true. — Christopher Hitchens</li>
<li>I am not even an atheist so much as an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion I do not wish, as some sentimental materialists affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually true.... There may be people who wish to live their lives under cradle-to-grave divine supervision, a permanent surveillance and monitoring. But I cannot imagine anything more horrible or grotesque. ? Christopher Hitchens</li>
<li>A belief is not true because it is useful. — Henri-Frédéric Amiel</li>
<li>You don't get to advertise all the good that your religion does without first scrupulously subtracting all the harm it does and considering seriously the question of whether some other religion, or no religion at all, does better. — Daniel C. Dennett</li>
<li>Your least favorite virtue, or nominee for the most overrated one? Faith. Closely followed—in view of the overall shortage of time—by patience. — Christopher Hitchens</li>
<li>Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There`s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning. — Bill Gates</li>
<li>Are your convictions so fragile that mine cannot stand in opposition to them? Is your God so illusory that the presence of my Devil reveals his insufficiency? — Marquis de Sade</li>
<li>If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him? If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses? If grace does everything for them, what reason would he have for recompensing them? If he is all-powerful, how offend him, how resist him? If he is reasonable, how can he be angry at the blind, to whom he has given the liberty of being unreasonable? If he is immovable, by what right do we pretend to make him change his decrees? If he is inconceivable, why occupy ourselves with him? IF HE HAS SPOKEN, WHY IS THE UNIVERSE NOT CONVINCED? — Percy Bysshe Shelley</li>
<li>The hands that help are better far than lips that pray. — Robert G. Ingersoll</li>
</ol>The Thin Veneer of Deeply Held Religious Beliefstag:atheistnexus.org,2018-03-14:2182797:BlogPost:27938192018-03-14T23:00:00.000ZRichard Lawrencehttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/RichLawrence
<p></p>
<p><em>"I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record to say that [s]he knew or understood the mind of god. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the godly must claim—so modestly and so humbly—to possess. It is time to withdraw our 'respect' from such fantastic claims, all of them aimed at the exertion of power over other humans in the real and material world.”</em> <br></br> <em>― Christopher Hitchens, The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the…</em></p>
<p></p>
<p><em>"I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record to say that [s]he knew or understood the mind of god. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the godly must claim—so modestly and so humbly—to possess. It is time to withdraw our 'respect' from such fantastic claims, all of them aimed at the exertion of power over other humans in the real and material world.”</em> <br/> <em>― Christopher Hitchens, The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/pro-trump-pastor-says-thou-shall-not-have-sex-porn-star-totally-irrelevant-838017" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recent interview</a> on Fox News featured Robert Jeffress, an evangelical adviser to Trump and pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas defending President Trump concerning the recent Stormy Daniels scandal. To sum up the pastor's position: "We don't care what Trump has done in the past. What is important is what he can do for us now." The "we" that the pastor refers to is the community of the faithful, the ones with the "deeply held religious beliefs". These beliefs can be jettisoned in a moment with a theological slight of hand when it suits the interests of the faithful. These are the people who are suddenly seized with concern over the "sanctity of marriage" while having multiple spouses and divorces. These are the people who want to rewrite our laws to enforce these "deeply held religious beliefs', beliefs that they will jettison in an instant when it suits their purposes and gains them power over others in this world, the only world that actually concerns them, the only world they really believe in. The more fanatical of their ilk will tell you God actually talks to them and gives them instructions that the rest of us must follow. To even question this claim is now perceived as insulting to them and they will demand an apology from you for having the slightest doubt that the creator of the universe talks to them and them alone and has but them in charge. How dare you question them when they demand your time, your money and, most important of all, your unquestioned obedience and acceptance of what they say? How dare you question God?</p>
<p>But there is a silver lining to this. We see right through them now. We see them for what they are; parasites on society, a mental cancer that seeks to destroy this nation of laws and turn it into a theocracy with they, of course, occupying the position of 'theo'. Their 'deeply held religious beliefs' are the thinnest veneer over a festering infection of hate towards their fellow man that threatens all of us. Stand up to them and call them out when they stop indulging in their pet sins long enough to become suddenly obsessed with what others are doing. Question whatever authority they pretend to have and tell them you won't be spoken to in that manner by some other mammal, which is all they are. We've had enough and we've seen enough of this divine hypocrisy. Its time to push them back to the margins of society where they belong.</p>
<p> </p>The Death of a Friendtag:atheistnexus.org,2018-03-12:2182797:BlogPost:27936702018-03-12T19:00:36.000ZRichard Lawrencehttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/RichLawrence
<p><em>“A melancholy lesson of advancing years is the realization that you can't make old friends.”― Christopher Hitchens</em></p>
<p>Monday mornings and I have never managed to come to any sort of rapprochement. Mondays are not the sort of day one looks forward to for obvious reasons but some are far worse than others. For me, this last Monday was one of the more terrible ones. I was greeted with the news that an old friend had finally lost his ten year battle with cancer. The news from…</p>
<p><em>“A melancholy lesson of advancing years is the realization that you can't make old friends.”― Christopher Hitchens</em></p>
<p>Monday mornings and I have never managed to come to any sort of rapprochement. Mondays are not the sort of day one looks forward to for obvious reasons but some are far worse than others. For me, this last Monday was one of the more terrible ones. I was greeted with the news that an old friend had finally lost his ten year battle with cancer. The news from the week prior was not good but we all expected him to make a recovery as he had many times previously. Fate, it seems, had other intentions for our friend this time.</p>
<p>In this day of social media news spreads quickly. Well wishes and condolences started to stream in. I found myself on the phone with mutual friends who I hadn't spoken with in years. I've always thought it a shame that that the only time we call or reach out to each other these days is when someone we know passes away. It was good to hear their voices as it reminded each of us of a time when our friend was still there, laughing one more time about the adventures of our youth and the coming of age experiences we shared. As we talked and the conversations moved to what was now the all consuming event in our lives, the death of our friend, we seemed to part ways in spirit. They took great consolation believing that the spirit of my friend 'lived on' in heaven and would be watching over those of us who were still dwelling in the land of the living. It was if they were talking about color to a blind man.</p>
<p>I'm a naturalist so I don't have a belief in the supernatural which includes a place where the departed spirits go after this life is over. All we have, in my view, is our brief time together while we are alive in this world. I take consolation in the fact that my friend left a large body of work for us to enjoy and the memories I have of the times and experiences we shared. I find it especially rewarding that I can look up at a sky full of stars and remember the many times we spent gazing through my telescope and waxing philosophical about life, the universe and everything, to quote Douglas Adams. These memories also create a sense of urgency in me to take out the telescope when I might not feel like it, to pack up the bass and head out to that Blues Jam when I would rather stay home and to sit down and write that article when all I'd rather do is surf Facebook. We all have a limited time to do the things we want to do; some of us have more than others as life so often brutally reminds us. Eventually the silence of the grave will overtake us all and our voices will be extinguished. But while we are alive our voices ring out loud and clear. Now is the time to be heard, now is the time to make music and dance. May the life of my friend and all he accomplished constantly keep this fire alive in me; I can't think of a better way to honor his memory until that eternal silence overtakes me.</p>The new social media that won't track you: MeWe.comtag:atheistnexus.org,2018-03-10:2182797:BlogPost:27934452018-03-10T06:23:42.000ZCane Kostovskihttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/AtheistTech
<p>I have been using it for two days and it needs more people. It's much like FB, but without ads or tracking.</p>
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<p><a href="https://mewe.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://mewe.com</a> secure too!</p>
<p>I have been using it for two days and it needs more people. It's much like FB, but without ads or tracking.</p>
<p></p>
<p><a href="https://mewe.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://mewe.com</a> secure too!</p>RIP Billy Graham, merchant of delusiontag:atheistnexus.org,2018-03-06:2182797:BlogPost:27932432018-03-06T23:00:00.000ZAlan Perlmanhttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/AlanPerlman
<p>My stomach has been roiling with nausea, my eyes perpetually rolling, at the outpouring of religiosity that accompanied the passing of the most successful fantasy merchant of the last century, perhaps of all time.</p>
<p>His message -- God loves you -- is absurd. George Carlin first described religion's visions of the tortures of hell -- then ended with "...but he LOVES you." So much for God's love. </p>
<p>I'm really sorry that major secular organizations didn't speak out -- or speak out…</p>
<p>My stomach has been roiling with nausea, my eyes perpetually rolling, at the outpouring of religiosity that accompanied the passing of the most successful fantasy merchant of the last century, perhaps of all time.</p>
<p>His message -- God loves you -- is absurd. George Carlin first described religion's visions of the tortures of hell -- then ended with "...but he LOVES you." So much for God's love. </p>
<p>I'm really sorry that major secular organizations didn't speak out -- or speak out more loudly -- against this tsunami of bullshit, including wall-to-wall TV coverage. Nobody dared question it. </p>
<p>Billy Graham was no friend of reason and critical thought, which have been responsible for all human progress. Instead, he promised to make you ever closer to his fantasy friends, thereby ensuring a permanent state of childhood in anyone who took him seriously. Left alone, children abandon fantasy friends. But as B.F. Skinner observed, "Society attacks early, when the child is helpless."</p>
<p>What did Billy have that a million other clerical fantasy merchants didn't have? As a speechwriter, I giver him lots of points for presence and oratory. He started at a very young age and worked hard to hone his craft. The man SOLD his message. And because he also really believed it, they bought it. ;.</p>
<p>And Presidents listened to this man! Or they pretended to, because religiosity in America is ineradicable -- and intrusive. In letters to the editor, I read that kids get shot in schools because we have taken God out of the schools. Only in this space could I say how ludicrous that proposition is. </p>
<p>But back to Graham. He made fantasy friends pay off -- for him, big-time. The amounts of money he was able to amass by selling access to the fantasy friends is astounding. Yes, he urged people to behave themselves and act morally -- because the fantasy friends said they have to. So when he died, instead of getting about the work of behaving ethically, countless people wasted countless hours in mass prayer services, which are disgusting exercises in humiliation and obeisance to those fantasy friends. </p>
<p>Billy Graham deserves no more respect than P.T. Barnum, with whom he had much in common. Instead, the response to his death was over the top. OK, believers can waste their time mourning him. But when the entire political apparatus of the state genuflects to this charlatan (and the leading secular voices are silent, far as I can tell), one wonders if our society will ever be able to question, much less rid itself of, the poison called religion. </p>The Laurence Krauss Debacletag:atheistnexus.org,2018-02-25:2182797:BlogPost:27925932018-02-25T03:00:13.000ZRichard Lawrencehttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/RichLawrence
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/peteraldhous/lawrence-krauss-sexual-harassment-allegations?utm_term=.qpKD1jp4w#.ayomoVN1a" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Buzzfeed</a> article by <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/peteraldhous" title="Peter Aldhous">Peter Aldhous</a> <span class="byline__title">(BuzzFeed News Reporter),</span> <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/azeenghorayshi" title="Azeen Ghorayshi">Azeen Ghorayshi</a> <span class="byline__title">(BuzzFeed News Reporter),…</span></p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/peteraldhous/lawrence-krauss-sexual-harassment-allegations?utm_term=.qpKD1jp4w#.ayomoVN1a" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Buzzfeed</a> article by <a title="Peter Aldhous" href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/peteraldhous">Peter Aldhous</a> <span class="byline__title">(BuzzFeed News Reporter),</span> <a title="Azeen Ghorayshi" href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/azeenghorayshi">Azeen Ghorayshi</a> <span class="byline__title">(BuzzFeed News Reporter), and</span> <a title="Virginia Hughes" href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/virginiahughes">Virginia Hughes</a> <span class="byline__title">(BuzzFeed News Science Editor) chronicles allegations of sexual misconduct by Dr. Laurence Krauss spanning at least a decade. According to the article their "<em>reporting is based on official university documents, emails, and interviews with more than 50 people</em>." Given the current social zeitgeist, I anticipate that all of these will become a matter of public record and, if the allegations are true, Dr. Krauss should bear full responsibility and suffer the consequences for these reprehensible actions, consequences which need to be quite stout. According to <a href="http://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/arizona-news/asu-responds-to-lawrence-krauss-sexual-misconduct-allegations" target="_blank" rel="noopener">KSAZ</a>, Arizona State University, where Dr. Krauss is a professor, has issued a statement that they are unaware of any allegations against him and have initiated a review. They have encouraged anyone who may have concerns about faculty, staff or students in this regard to come forward.</span></p>
<p>I'd encourage everyone to read the BuzzFeed article as it is not without bias against secularism. That being said there are a number of things in it that concern me. First and foremost the article states that Dr. Krauss has been banned from the campuses of two institutions, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario in response to complaints made against him. If true, this points to a pattern of behavior. The second is Dr. Krauss's response to the current allegations against him.</p>
<p>From the article,</p>
<p><em>In lengthy emails to BuzzFeed News, Krauss denied all of the accusations against him, calling them “false and misleading defamatory allegations.” When asked why multiple women, over more than a decade, have separately accused him of misconduct, he said the answer was “obvious”: It’s because his provocative ideas have made him famous.</em></p>
<p><em>“It is common knowledge that celebrity attracts all forms of negative attention from many different angles,” Krauss said in a December email. “There is no pattern of discontent revealed here that suggests any other explanation.”</em></p>
<p>My gut response to this is that his reply smacks of deflection. After further reflection, I am convinced that is what he is doing. I am a big fan of his work. His ability to communicate complex and difficult ideas is one of the best I've seen. Ergo, his inept response to these allegations raises even more suspicions in my mind.</p>
<p>Dr. Krauss has already suffered some repercussions from these allegations according to a recent <a href="https://gizmodo.com/science-organizations-cancel-lawrence-krauss-events-aft-1823280632" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gizmodo</a> article. If the allegations are confirmed then it is the moral responsibility of all organizations to cut ties with Dr. Krauss for two reasons. First, the behavior itself. This sort of behavior should not be tolerated and it is up to the secular community to make a strong statement that it will not be tolerated within it's ranks and follow those words up with equally strong actions. Second, the self-professed <em>sine qua non</em> of the secular movement is the pursuit of the truth. We are fond of posting memes and quotes in social media and arguing in debates that it is the quest for truth that motivates us no matter how uncomfortable that truth may turn out to be. If these allegations are proven to be the truth then Dr. Krauss's initial denial was a flat out lie. That permanently disqualifies him to be a standard bearer in an organization or movement that professes to hold truth as the ultimate good.</p>Florida Students need America's Support to Stop School Shootings.tag:atheistnexus.org,2018-02-25:2182797:BlogPost:27926612018-02-25T00:11:45.000ZDyslexic's DOGhttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/DislexicDoggy
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">These students are on the right track, as Australia, Canada, Britain and Japan all prove that the way to stop Gun Violence is through banning guns.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Australia, Britain and Canada all have the same mental health problems with students and men, but they don't have the school shootings that America has, like 3 in a month, and likely to get more with the shooters getting coverage on media, thus giving them more…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">These students are on the right track, as Australia, Canada, Britain and Japan all prove that the way to stop Gun Violence is through banning guns.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Australia, Britain and Canada all have the same mental health problems with students and men, but they don't have the school shootings that America has, like 3 in a month, and likely to get more with the shooters getting coverage on media, thus giving them more encouragement as most shooters seek recognition and the mass and social media is giving them the recognition they desire.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So there are bound to be more shootings, because of this factor alone.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So just stopping loons from having guns is not going to stop those who are clever at deception or slip through the screening cracks.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Oregon's blocking domestic abusers from having guns is a great start, and likely this was a product of these Florida student's protesting.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So it is about time, or decades too late for such a movement as these students are spurring on to arise.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Americans should have been proactive like these students after Sandy Hook, but the NRA has been too powerful and clever in its deception of the American public and purchasing politicians.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So it has been too late for many, like 30,000 people who die from shootings every year.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In Australia not only did mass shootings completely stop, but gun deaths across the board, like from gun related crimes and suicides dropped by over 50%. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So banning guns would save more than 15,000 American lives every year.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So these students need all the support America can muster.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">These students are proving themselves to be Rational Critical Thinkers.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">They are not accepting the BS form the likes of Dumb Gov't Members like Rubio and Trump. </span></p>
<p></p>Using Theology's Favourite Form of Logic (Deductive) to Destroy Theology. All Theological Arguments Fail From Having an Invalid Primary Premise, "God".tag:atheistnexus.org,2018-02-24:2182797:BlogPost:27927502018-02-24T23:30:00.000ZDyslexic's DOGhttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/DislexicDoggy
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Every theologian I've ever encountered and even those debating atheists in public like William Lane Craig, Ken Ham, Lee Strobel and Ravi Zacharias, all base their arguments on Deductive Reasoning and</strong></span> <span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>the existence of their God.</strong></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Though Logically, using their very own Deductive Logic, all their arguments that assert the existence of a God,…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Every theologian I've ever encountered and even those debating atheists in public like William Lane Craig, Ken Ham, Lee Strobel and Ravi Zacharias, all base their arguments on Deductive Reasoning and</strong></span> <span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>the existence of their God.</strong></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Though Logically, using their very own Deductive Logic, all their arguments that assert the existence of a God, such as "Without God there can be no morality", fail because they have automatically added a Premise to their argument that has not been Validated. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>To the Theologian; the without God, man could not be moral looks like this.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Premise 1: Man was born sinful and so lacks morality.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Premise 2: Morality was given to man by God.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Conclusion: Therefore without God, man could not not have morality.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Logically This is a Valid Conclusion, so the Theologian can consider it as a Win in an argument.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Problem with this is that there is a Missing Premise that the Theologian is Asserting, namely the Existence of God. </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So the Theologian is ignoring the missing Premise and the Syllogism actually looks like the following:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Premise 0: or Universal Theological Premise: God Exists!</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Premise 1: Man was born sinful and so lacks morality.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Premise 2: Morality was given to man by God.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Conclusion: Therefore without God, man could not not have morality.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Logically, Premise 0 (Existence) Needs to be validated before the Conclusion can be Valid or True.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Since nobody has Validated the Existence of God, Premise 0 is Not Valid and the Conclusion is always Invalid or False!</strong></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Therefore all Arguments for God by Theologians suffer from an Invalid Primary Premise and thus are all False by default. </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">See what your local Theologians think about this! </span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Let me know their responses. :-D~</span></p>
<p><a href="http://api.ning.com:80/files/n7NcUmpoeeEpdJDZIkq4G-ZByNSNcoVJStg9hH4hjisI1SKfNvbgHcnEd-Qhpw5LIeCLuVXsBJYCHEcEzVUZqJq4zv6*n*gF/TheologyInvalidPremise.jpg" target="_self"><img src="http://api.ning.com:80/files/n7NcUmpoeeEpdJDZIkq4G-ZByNSNcoVJStg9hH4hjisI1SKfNvbgHcnEd-Qhpw5LIeCLuVXsBJYCHEcEzVUZqJq4zv6*n*gF/TheologyInvalidPremise.jpg" width="640" class="align-full"/></a></p>Dear Senator Portman: Regarding Gun Control...tag:atheistnexus.org,2018-02-18:2182797:BlogPost:27923602018-02-18T18:00:20.000ZLoren Millerhttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/LorenMiller
<p>Don't ask why it's taken so long for me to write. Stipulated that I've been involved in "clicktivist" petitions about gun control and perhaps written my representatives here and there in the wake of past mass shootings. Somehow, this last incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High just GOT to me. That and learning that Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman has an "A" rating with the National Rifle Association pretty well broke my camel's back.<br></br><br></br>In any case, the following just went out…</p>
<p>Don't ask why it's taken so long for me to write. Stipulated that I've been involved in "clicktivist" petitions about gun control and perhaps written my representatives here and there in the wake of past mass shootings. Somehow, this last incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High just GOT to me. That and learning that Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman has an "A" rating with the National Rifle Association pretty well broke my camel's back.<br/><br/>In any case, the following just went out both to Portman's DC address by snail mail and through his Senate website.<br/> <br/> ========================<br/> <br/> Senator Portman:<br/> <br/> Ordinarily when writing a letter such as this, I would duplicate it across all my representatives. In this case, however – in the case of the issue of gun control – I am writing solely to you, because frankly your record sticks out like a sore thumb. Your opposition to any form of gun control or regulation, particularly in the face of tragedies which started long before Sandy Hook and continue with Parkland, Florida, staggers belief.<br/> <br/> Worse, it is illogical considering both the Second Amendment and technological progress since that amendment was written. At the time the Constitution was penned, it took a skilled marksman half a minute or longer to fire, reload, and fire again. In the 21<sup>st</sup> century, that same action with a semiautomatic weapon takes mere milliseconds to accomplish. The threat of a single musket 250 years ago is miniscule by comparison with modern-day firepower such as an AR-15, yet our government acts as though those weapons are equivalent when they are clearly not. Our patterns of thought regarding firearms and the law MUST change, or this trend will likely continue unabated.<br/> <br/> As regards change in thought, I know you are capable of such. When your son, Will came out as gay, your attitude towards the LGBT community changed, because all at once you had skin in that game. With that as backdrop, would it take him or someone else close to you being a victim of yet another shooting before you can recognize that laws written two centuries ago are not adequate to the current <em>status quo</em>?<br/> <br/> Someone once said, “If nothing changes, nothing changes.” We have had a horrendous tattoo of mass shooting after mass shooting, and nothing other than feckless “thoughts and prayers” have been offered to salve the grief of those who have had to face those tragedies head-on. What we require right now is strong, courageous ACTION to stave off what seems to be becoming a new and unacceptable normal. Please don’t blow me off as another gun control nut, and <em>please</em> don’t respond with a condescending form letter, expressing your opposition, while more children and adults die from gun violence. I’m asking you to be part of the change this country needs, and DO something, before one or more of your constituents becomes a headline.<br/> <br/> Sincerely,<br/> <br/> Loren C. Miller, Jr.</p>The Berlin Wall - A Melancholy Anniversarytag:atheistnexus.org,2018-02-18:2182797:BlogPost:27922782018-02-18T01:33:40.000ZRichard Lawrencehttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/RichLawrence
<p>“Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.”<br></br>― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas</p>
<p></p>
<p>This month marked what should be a joyous anniversary of the Mauerfall - the fall of the Berlin Wall. For on the fifth of February the Wall had been down as long as it had been up; precisely…</p>
<p>“Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.”<br/>― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas</p>
<p></p>
<p>This month marked what should be a joyous anniversary of the Mauerfall - the fall of the Berlin Wall. For on the fifth of February the Wall had been down as long as it had been up; precisely 10,315 days had passed since the Berlin Wall came down. The Berlin Wall has always always been a part of me having lived under it's shadow for three years and having been extremely privileged to have played a very small part in the effort which eventually brought it down. What makes this anniversary bitter-sweet is that the ideas of Madison, Jefferson, Adams and Thomas Paine that sparked our own revolution and were the ideas that inspired the spirit of the people behind that wall to demand freedom and ultimately tear down both the physical and ideological barriers that enslaved them now despised by a large number of people in the very country which began because of the revolution those ideas inspired, the only revolution still standing.</p>
<p>I can still vividly recall that warm summer afternoon in 1979 when my flight from Frankfurt touched down at Tegel. I was in West Berlin. Walking through the terminal to get to the taxi stand I noticed that there was an electricity in the air that was as palpable as the electricity you feel when walking the streets of midtown Manhattan. In spite of being surrounded by everything foreign, the language, the items for sale in the shops I walked past, or the Polizei walking two by two, machine guns at the ready, the zeitgeist in that terminal caused me to feel like I was home in a very subtle but moving way. This feeling of being home was able to anchor me over the next three years which turned out to be the most transformative years of my life.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The Cold War was fought and won in buildings like this all over the world. Our duty station was only a stone's throw from the Wall. You could see the Wall and the oversized watchtower as you walked through the front gate every time you went to work. It was a daily reminder of what you were fighting against. The time spent off-duty with the wonderful people of West Berlin was a constant reminder of what you were fighting for. The people of West Berlin were amazing. They taught me how much I took for granted. They taught me resilience and poise under the most difficult of circumstances. They taught me what good wine and what good beer was. Most importantly they taught me that the values we shared could survive any ideology, any foe, even an attempt to starve it to death. They were living proof of that. It was an honor to stand watch and defend them.</p>
<p>When the Wall came down it sent a clear message to the world that the rights of men and women to determine their own destiny, to be free to hold whatever ideas seemed good and right to them still had the power to transform nations. The power could be seen in all its glory in the streets of the city we once again simply called Berlin.</p>
<p>As I write this Angela Merkel has told what remains of 'the West' that they can no longer count on America. Indictments of Russian interference in our 2016 Presidential election have been released. We have a President who is suspected of entering into collusion with the Russians to steal the election. He currently is refusing to sign into law the strict sanctions against Russia the House and Senate overwhelmingly passed. Our love for freedom has morphed into a fetish for guns at whose altar we will gladly sacrifice our children by the dozens. We have Nazis marching in our streets and running people down with cars. We have turned hate into a virtue. But, as I write this, it appears that a nascent democracy is trying to birth itself in Iran. They are shouting down the Mullahs, burning Korans and Hijabs in the street and are willing to risk it all for the values they hold and the rights they demand. I hear the echos of the voices I heard on the streets of West Berlin in the shouts of the young people marching in the streets of Iran. It is good to see the revolution of 1776 is still alive and well in the world. It is sad to see it dying here in the land that started it all.</p>Ides of March - Git Diggin! - Vernal Equinoxtag:atheistnexus.org,2018-02-17:2182797:BlogPost:27920762018-02-17T14:40:11.000ZGarry Denkehttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/GarryDenke
<p><a href="http://api.ning.com:80/files/rKfMvV-*qtJFHzNoOQgVSHiVUoiCU8pUmGARxkG-rBuTK8IIosvewOxSJfbJ2h5SST7tYTenycVIRQnzlb2SkvZ0hnvhIYhu/NASAseasonalvariations.jpg" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://api.ning.com:80/files/rKfMvV-*qtJFHzNoOQgVSHiVUoiCU8pUmGARxkG-rBuTK8IIosvewOxSJfbJ2h5SST7tYTenycVIRQnzlb2SkvZ0hnvhIYhu/NASAseasonalvariations.jpg" width="431"></img></a></p>
<p>Recharging the Galaxies &amp; Planets magnetic shields<br></br> Exhuming, Universal magnetic reversal, Recharging…<br></br></p>
<p><a href="http://api.ning.com:80/files/rKfMvV-*qtJFHzNoOQgVSHiVUoiCU8pUmGARxkG-rBuTK8IIosvewOxSJfbJ2h5SST7tYTenycVIRQnzlb2SkvZ0hnvhIYhu/NASAseasonalvariations.jpg" target="_self"><img src="http://api.ning.com:80/files/rKfMvV-*qtJFHzNoOQgVSHiVUoiCU8pUmGARxkG-rBuTK8IIosvewOxSJfbJ2h5SST7tYTenycVIRQnzlb2SkvZ0hnvhIYhu/NASAseasonalvariations.jpg" width="431" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p>Recharging the Galaxies &amp; Planets magnetic shields<br/> Exhuming, Universal magnetic reversal, Recharging<br/> <a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/431px_width/public/NASA-seasonalvariations.jpg">https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/431px_width/public/NASA-seasonalvariations.jpg</a></p>
<p>When you see the Heel Stone at Stonehenge moved, the Mishkan thereunder Surfaced, and a continuing Dimming of Light universally, BE SURE TO SHUT DOWN ALL Electric, Magnetic, and Electromagnetic systems; Universal Magnetic Reversal recharge by EMP set to occur in LESS THAN 72 HOURS after said Surfaced Mishkan time (UTC) at said Stonehenge Heel Stone.<br/> <a href="http://www.rumormillnews.com/MEDIA_EMAIL_ADDRESSES.htm">http://www.rumormillnews.com/MEDIA_EMAIL_ADDRESSES.htm</a></p>
<p>All of the above Have been notified.</p>
<p>Ralphy Raoul Wally<br/> Sir Walter Wally<br/> G. Willy Wally<br/>
Wally Hope</p>
<p>Increase A303 Stonehenge Tunnel to 6.12km (3.8mi)<br/> Accept offer. Citizens save £2B ... Git Diggin! G-D</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1801&amp;L=BRITARCH&amp;F=&amp;S=&amp;P=20894">https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1801&amp;L=BRITARCH&amp;F=&amp;S=&amp;P=20894</a><br/> <a href="https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/202895/sponsors/new?token=FaHZBL5uY3X3MYqoKvYU">https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/202895/sponsors/new?token=FaHZBL5uY3X3MYqoKvYU</a><br/> <a href="https://highwaysengland.citizenspace.com/he/a303-stonehenge-2018/supporting_documents/BED18%200014%20A303%20STONEHENGE%20CONSULTATION%2018%20for%20digita%202433.pdf">https://highwaysengland.citizenspace.com/he/a303-stonehenge-2018/supporting_documents/BED18%200014%20A303%20STONEHENGE%20CONSULTATION%2018%20for%20digita%202433.pdf</a><br/>
<a href="http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/">http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/</a><br/>
<a href="http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/">http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/</a></p>Scientific proof of human nature well suited for RBEtag:atheistnexus.org,2018-02-14:2182797:BlogPost:27916862018-02-14T06:04:08.000ZCane Kostovskihttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/AtheistTech
<p><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/marco_alvera_the_surprising_ingredient_that_makes_businesses_work_better?utm_campaign=tedspread&amp;utm_content=image__2018-02-13&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=tedcomshare" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.ted.com/talks/marco_alvera_the_surprising_ingredient_that_makes_businesses_work_better?utm_campaign=tedspread&amp;utm_content=image__2018-02-13&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=tedcomshare</a></p>
<p></p>
<p>This video talks about…</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/marco_alvera_the_surprising_ingredient_that_makes_businesses_work_better?utm_campaign=tedspread&amp;utm_content=image__2018-02-13&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=tedcomshare" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.ted.com/talks/marco_alvera_the_surprising_ingredient_that_makes_businesses_work_better?utm_campaign=tedspread&amp;utm_content=image__2018-02-13&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=tedcomshare</a></p>
<p></p>
<p>This video talks about how to fix business, but it also can be applied to RBE.</p>Meditations on "Jonah"tag:atheistnexus.org,2018-02-13:2182797:BlogPost:27914132018-02-13T15:00:14.000ZLoren Millerhttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/LorenMiller
<p><em>They say Jonah, he was swallowed by a whale, <br></br> But I say, there's no truth to that tale.<br></br> I know Jonah, he was swallowed by a song.</em><br></br> -- Paul Simon, "Jonah"<br></br> <br></br> I was going to save that quote for an entry in the Quotations group, but it and the music that accompanies it really captured me this morning ... or “swallowed” me, as Paul put it.<br></br> <br></br> I really admire that – being so consumed with a skill, talent, or desire that it utterly occupies your life, as…</p>
<p><em>They say Jonah, he was swallowed by a whale, <br/> But I say, there's no truth to that tale.<br/> I know Jonah, he was swallowed by a song.</em><br/> -- Paul Simon, "Jonah"<br/> <br/> I was going to save that quote for an entry in the Quotations group, but it and the music that accompanies it really captured me this morning ... or “swallowed” me, as Paul put it.<br/> <br/> I really admire that – being so consumed with a skill, talent, or desire that it utterly occupies your life, as perhaps songwriting has done with people like Paul Simon or Billy Joel or any of a thousand other people for whom music making is as much obsession as it is vocation. It’s likely a bumpy ride in places, too, trying to find the perfect words to match a melody or a musical line to compliment an inspired lyric. Worse, going through writer’s block, when it doesn’t come at all, and you have to force yourself to keep the creative gears turning, lest they freeze entirely. And there’s the rush when it all comes together, when the author or composer feels like the work is finished and ready … only to worry whether this new creation will be met with praise or derision by the admiring bog. A bumpy ride, indeed.<br/> <br/> The closest I ever got to anything quite so certain was probably troubleshooting. From the time I was a kid, I seemingly always had a talent for taking things apart and putting them back together again, and in that process, learn how they worked. It was a rough-edged skill that needed refinement and polishing for the real world, especially since an unspoken yet critical requirement of those who fix things is that they have to get it RIGHT – 100 percent of the time – because that’s what the customer expects of them. Otherwise, they don’t keep their job long. Took a while for me, but there did come a point where that confidence grew in me, where I felt as though, if I could learn a device or a machine or a system properly, my skills and experience would allow me to ferret out any malfunction it might have and return it to working condition. What do I get out of it? In a word, satisfaction. <strong><em>I</em></strong> beat that problem; <strong><em>I</em></strong> found that bug, that pernicious failure mode, that hidden glitch. Sometimes it was even … well … “frictionless,” as though I were able to look into the system and intuit the problem, almost without effort. Does that feel as good as penning a chart-busting song? No idea, but that sense of accomplishment still means a lot to me.<br/> <br/> Which brings me to wonder: how many of us would want to be overwhelmed by a singular purpose like that? To find such a focus for our lives that it takes away ambiguity and leaves only a single-minded direction to follow. Could it be that this is what the religious believers want: to be swallowed by their god and their belief, to the point where any question or vagary is eliminated in favor of something utterly undeniable? Free will vs. predestination aside, that’s a pretty tall wish, and I’m sure you know the one about: “Be careful what you wish for; you might get it.”<br/> <br/> Such are the ruminations of a Tuesday morning, submitted for your approval.</p>The human species – a naturalist conjecturetag:atheistnexus.org,2018-02-12:2182797:BlogPost:27916282018-02-12T01:55:13.000ZRichard Lawrencehttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/RichLawrence
<p>One question still unanswered in biology and one that is of special interest to me is what happened to our evolutionary branch that made us so different than our nearest relatives on the evolutionary tree, the chimpanzees and bonobos? Putting aside supernatural explanations as well as wild speculation about aliens doing genetic experiments on our race as something to do while taking a break from construction of the pyramids, the correct explanation will be provided by science.</p>
<p>An…</p>
<p>One question still unanswered in biology and one that is of special interest to me is what happened to our evolutionary branch that made us so different than our nearest relatives on the evolutionary tree, the chimpanzees and bonobos? Putting aside supernatural explanations as well as wild speculation about aliens doing genetic experiments on our race as something to do while taking a break from construction of the pyramids, the correct explanation will be provided by science.</p>
<p>An excellent <a href="http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics" target="_blank" rel="noopener">article</a> on the Smithsonian’s webpage states that the difference between our DNA and our nearest relatives on the evolutionary tree is about 1.5%. It is within this difference that the mutations that make us uniquely human are most likely to found. There are various conjectures at this point but the one that rings the most true to me comes from a talk given by Dr. Brian Thomas Swimme which I was fortunate to stumble across a few years ago. The narrative goes something like this:</p>
<p>When you compare human infants and chimpanzee infants the similarities are striking. As they develop, like most mammals, the young enter a period of play and exploration necessitating a constant eye on them by the mother and the extended family. This period of play by young mammals is observable in all other species of mammals such as dogs, cats, bears lions, and even Orcas. In most mammals this period is short lived compared to humans, even in species that have comparative lifespans to ours. Soon after this phase in most other mammals the genetic programs kick in and the adult forms emerge complete with the physique and skills necessary to be lion, or a chimp or any other adult mammal. Not so with the human. It appears that the genetic programs that are activated in our closest and most distant cousins are not activated in humans. We retain a lot of the physical and mental features we had in childhood and adolescence. How might this be explained and what are the implications for us as humans?</p>
<p>There is a set of genes called the Hox genes which control the rate of development in animals. The conjecture is that there was a mutation or a series of mutations in the Hox genes in humans which resulted in the slowing down of our development. While most species’ young stay in that playful and explorative phase for a brief time, humans in many ways never develop out of it. We retain that wonder and drive to explore our surroundings throughout our entire lives. In other words, compared to other mammals, members of our species never completely ‘grow up’ and the genetic programs that kick in to make a Chimpanzee a Chimpanzee never kick in for the human. As Swimme speculates, there are profound meanings for us if this is the case. We retain that wonder and, as we mature, it changes into a desire to know and understand. We retain that playfulness and our desire to play and enjoy ourselves still fills us with longing. There are also other implications to this. When the genetic programs kick in to transform a tiger cub into an adult tiger all the necessary knowledge and skills are included. No one has to teach a tiger how to be a tiger; the DNA does that. In humans, this is not so. The adult genetic programs, specifically the ones telling us ‘how to adult’ never get turned on. What does this mean? In a very real sense it means that humans don’t know what they should do. Lions and tigers and bears don’t suffer from the search for meaning and purpose, a search that seems to have afflicted humans throughout our history.</p>
<p>It is an interesting conjecture that, on the face of it, seems to point in the direction to where our uniqueness as a species can be found. I’m hopeful that I will still be alive when the conjecture becomes theory.</p>Review: The Faith of Christopher Hitchens by Larry Tauntontag:atheistnexus.org,2018-02-07:2182797:BlogPost:27912732018-02-07T17:19:35.000ZRichard Lawrencehttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/RichLawrence
<p>I had read a lot of vitriol from the secular community regarding this book and made a point of re-reading Hitch-22 since Taunton referenced it in his opening description of Christopher Hitchens. So armed I was looking forward to reading it to see if all the ruckus was justified. As it turns out, the book is rather anti-climactic. There is nothing in the book that would lead one to think there was any deathbed conversion. I have respect for Taunton insofar as any discussions of conversion he…</p>
<p>I had read a lot of vitriol from the secular community regarding this book and made a point of re-reading Hitch-22 since Taunton referenced it in his opening description of Christopher Hitchens. So armed I was looking forward to reading it to see if all the ruckus was justified. As it turns out, the book is rather anti-climactic. There is nothing in the book that would lead one to think there was any deathbed conversion. I have respect for Taunton insofar as any discussions of conversion he writes about is no different than what one would hear from any believer contemplating the death of a non-believing friend who, during the time they were alive, had philosophical and religious discussions about faith and belief and fervently hoped for a last minute change of mind. The book centers on a trip through the Shenandoah Valley after a debate that Taunton had moderated and a subsequent trip after the debate that Hitchens and Taunton had in Billings Montana. I would recommend watching the debate between Hitchens and Taunton which is freely available on YouTube.</p>
<p>Most apologists are guilty of causal simplification in their arguments against unbelievers and Taunton is no exception. This should preach well to his followers to which this book is very clearly directed. For the unbeliever and/or the fan of Hitchens this book does have something to offer and I'd recommend reading it if for only these two reasons. If you are looking for a compendium of tired old canards and jingoist slogans against atheists this book is for you; you'll not find a better one. The other and more important reason is to see the paucity of Taunton's thinking which is representative of the sort of mind that finds Taunton's sophistry impressive. It is readily apparent Taunton is quite pleased with himself and his conclusions which makes one feel a bit obligated to extend a degree of pity towards him.</p>
<p>Taunton takes Hitchens' expression of "keeping two sets of books" and accuses Hitchens of doing the same thing both in his movement from the Left to the Right and his subsequent support of the Iraq war and his desire to spend time with Taunton (they genuinely liked each other) to find out what Taunton believed and why. Taunton assumes that it is not possible to possess a mind that allows facts to change your opinions over time about your beliefs, even deeply held ones. One cannot sit in the pew every week making the outward professions of faith while at the same time holding doubts about certain tenets of one's faith and working through these issues in one's mind, according to Taunton's thinking. You either believe or you don't. Questioning is what Taunton would have you believe is "keeping two sets of books" and he accuses Hitchens of doing exactly that. While publically being a firebrand atheist up to his passing, Taunton interprets Hitchens desire to understand his friend's thinking as evidence that Hitchens was himself "keeping two sets of books" and furthermore was evidence that Hitchens was really considering converting in much the same way Peter Hitchens, Christopher's younger brother, converted later on in life. Anyone who has read Hitchens would see through this in an instant. A more apt example of what Hitchens considered "keeping two sets of books" would be Ted Haggard, the anti-homosexual preacher who lost everything when his long time homosexual relationships and drug usage were exposed.</p>
<p>As I write this review I am reading an article about Taunton resigning from his position as director of the Fixed Point Foundation after being confronted with allegations that he had inappropriate relationships with two young women on the ministry staff, according to sources familiar with the situation. If true, hopefully this will correct Taunton's misunderstanding about what "keeping two sets of books" actually means.</p>Life does begin at conception – a secular viewtag:atheistnexus.org,2018-02-05:2182797:BlogPost:27908952018-02-05T04:19:22.000ZRichard Lawrencehttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/RichLawrence
<p>A recent <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/department-charge-nations-health-care-hhs-says-life-begins-conception-684814" rel="noopener" target="_blank">article</a> from Newsweek was making the rounds in social media this week reporting on the new strategic draft issued by the Department of Health and Human services. The draft includes language that defines life as beginning at conception.</p>
<p>"HHS accomplishes its mission through programs and initiatives that cover a wide spectrum of…</p>
<p>A recent <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/department-charge-nations-health-care-hhs-says-life-begins-conception-684814" target="_blank" rel="noopener">article</a> from Newsweek was making the rounds in social media this week reporting on the new strategic draft issued by the Department of Health and Human services. The draft includes language that defines life as beginning at conception.</p>
<p>"HHS accomplishes its mission through programs and initiatives that cover a wide spectrum of activities, serving and protecting Americans at every stage of life, beginning at conception."</p>
<p>The comments on this article were cleanly divided across ideological lines: those against abortion considered this a major victory while those for abortion considered this a major setback. It is neither and that debate seems to be nothing more than a red herring at best. I think the science is quite clear: life, whether it is human or otherwise, does begin at conception. Once the egg and the sperm fuse the resulting DNA is human DNA which, for those of us who have their worldview informed by science, is the sine qua non of being human. The DNA is unique to the developing embryo and will stay just as unique throughout the entire gestational period until the mother gives birth. The mother and the child are separate and equal both in fact and, as I will argue, under the law.</p>
<p>The anti-abortion argument goes something like this: if you grant that the child is a child from the moment of conception (granted) then aborting the child at any point along the timeline spanning conception to birth is murder since you are taking a human life. It follows then that we should legislate according to this understanding since our laws consider murder a capital crime and our legal system, rather than aiding and abetting this, should be consistent in outlawing and prosecuting those who engage in this practice as they would any other individual or group who commits murder. The question is, does this argument follow from granting personhood and the subsequent legal rights that personhood entails in our society to the developing child? My contention is that it does not.</p>
<p>What the understanding that life begins at conception does do is grant both the mother and the child equal rights under the law. This is what logically follows, not the idea that the ending of the child's life is murder anymore than the death of a mother due to complications while carrying a child to term is murder. In a secular society that follows the rule of law, we are all considered equal under the law. If we are all considered equal, including the developing child, then no one, including the developing child, has the right to use anyone else's body for any reason, including survival, without that person's consent. That is the proper legal stance that government should hold and should base it's legislation on. Given this understanding, the decision whether to have or to not have an abortion is left with the mother, her conscience and her doctor's advice.</p>Review: Hitch-22 by Christopher Hitchenstag:atheistnexus.org,2018-02-02:2182797:BlogPost:27905852018-02-02T02:40:48.000ZRichard Lawrencehttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/RichLawrence
<p>“I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.”<br></br>― Christopher Hitchens</p>
<p>I started to read Larry Taunton's book, "The Faith of Christopher Hitchens" and he begins the book by painting a picture based on "Hitch 22", Christopher Hitchens' autobiography. Having read "Hitch 22" when it first came out I was struck how the impressions that Taunton was getting and the seemed importance he was assigning to them were not jibbing with my recollections so…</p>
<p>“I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.”<br/>― Christopher Hitchens</p>
<p>I started to read Larry Taunton's book, "The Faith of Christopher Hitchens" and he begins the book by painting a picture based on "Hitch 22", Christopher Hitchens' autobiography. Having read "Hitch 22" when it first came out I was struck how the impressions that Taunton was getting and the seemed importance he was assigning to them were not jibbing with my recollections so I decided to re-read Hitchens' book.</p>
<p>Aside from the pedestrian account of his upbringing which will interest Hitchens' fans, both friend and foe alike will be interested in his narration of his move from the 'Left' to the 'Right' as he witnessed the events in Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Cuba, and the Middle East unfolding. As I write this a secular revolution is happening in Iran. The youth are taking to the streets, demonstrating against the Mullahs, burning Korans and Hijabs and demanding democratic elections, in short demanding a secular government and society that affirms the preeminence of the secular values espoused by Paine, Jefferson and Madison. These are the same ideas that motivated our revolution here in America, the only revolution still standing in the world. These are the same ideals that inspired the countries of Eastern Europe to tear down the Berlin wall and the Iron Curtain and are now inspiring the young in Iran. Unfortunately it appears the United States has turned it's back on the world and the ideals it once stood for and exported around the world and has embraced nationalism and populism. I fear our revolution and the nascent one in Iran may be in grave jeopardy and I'd like to think Hitchens would feel the same way.</p>
<p>Now on to Larry Taunton's book........</p>How I became a Fundamentalist extremist in my childhood, its affects, and how I got out.tag:atheistnexus.org,2018-01-27:2182797:BlogPost:27903302018-01-27T14:30:00.000ZCompelledunbelieverhttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/Compelledunbeliever
<p> Lately I have been describing myself as a former Young Earth Creationist, Fundamentalist, wacko. At first I thought that the addition of the word "wacko" would cause much backlash. I have not had one negative comment even in Christian forums. I think this is due to a number of reasons. First of all, I am calling myself this and not pointing fingers at anyone else. What is interesting about this is, I can describe beliefs others still have yet they probably think "yes I belive that but I'm…</p>
<p> Lately I have been describing myself as a former Young Earth Creationist, Fundamentalist, wacko. At first I thought that the addition of the word "wacko" would cause much backlash. I have not had one negative comment even in Christian forums. I think this is due to a number of reasons. First of all, I am calling myself this and not pointing fingers at anyone else. What is interesting about this is, I can describe beliefs others still have yet they probably think "yes I belive that but I'm not wacko about that." People just don't want to label themselves as wacko no matter what their beliefs are. It actually opens them up to have converstations with me as they have empathy for "that extremeist." I digress before I start.</p>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>In the beginning</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">I was born in 1970. I was given my first Bible at 6, and of course every six year old can read King James early modern english. It was not given to me with other gifts, but seperately. This was special, my mother talked about God differently than Santa, this was serious.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">My family, even extended family, was extremely religious. I had preachers and cousins that went to mega churches 7 days a week and we were a very close family for caucasians. My father was dying of heart disease so my step mother would take me to church at age twelve at least twice a week, as she had to stay home to take care of him, someone would take me home and thats how it worked. I was twelve and truly wanted to go to church. The logic was simple. God was real. Life was short Heaven and Hell were forever. There could be nothing more important than serving God.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><img src="http://www.allbibles.com/images/product/large/0840701764.jpg" alt="Image result for king james children's bible zipper"/></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Nationalism / The Great Evil Empire</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> I believe I grew up at the very best time to create a radical Fundamentalist perhaps in many generations. There were many factors aside of the microculture I grew up in that had much influence on a young child. These influences were on steroids in the 80s.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> In 1983 Ronald Reagan gave "The Great Evil Empire" speech. The evil Communists <strong>atheist</strong> were going to drop Nuclear bombs on our heads to kill us good Christians. American and Christian were merged together as meaning the same thing, Nationalism and Christianity had become synonymous. (I see and fear this trending now) My civics teacher once told us a story (I don't know that it was true). A Russian teacher asked her students to pray for candy. They received none. The next day she told her students to ask Communism for candy. She then handed out candy.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> I understood that my teacher wanted us to understand that the evil atheist Communist wanted to supress my ability to be a Christian. On a side note, I remeber thinking that the Russian teacher was pretty stupid. The children prayed and recieved candy the very next day! I was beginning to think critically.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>The " Gay Disease"</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> In 1981 The gay disease appeared in Los Angeles. The common thing to hear was things like,(read in your best redneck preacher persona) 'God is punishing dem homos wit duh Gay Disease." A.I.D.S. was not understood and thought to be "gay." It was almost taught like the virus itself was homosexual. There was homophobia that was rampent, the Christian community pounced on the oppertunity to spread bigotry. The preachers started preaching that God was punishing all of us for allowing the sin of homosexuality by "killing us with dat AIDS." They of course didn't stop there they actually began to teach that homosexuals were "baby rapers."</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Satanic Panic</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQAGorFDp8oweJ9mx7i7OrWGiwFZYxP38NFCQZSs1TyHY7wnPY14A" alt="Image result for satanic panic"/></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">I didn't know why, but there were Satanist everywhere sacrificing babies all the time. I heard about it constantly at church and would hear about it on the news. What I heard on the news was simply trials going on concerning alligations, I simply thought they were about what I was told was happening at church. I don't even know how to describe these times but somthing as ridiculas as modern witch hunts. It was very real to me, I constantly was taught about it at church. There were demons that were raping women, ouija boards bringing out demons. A Satanic Church, Heavy Metal music that played Satanic messages backwards, Animal and baby sacrifices, even most company logos were Satanic.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">With the exception that Satan and demons are not real, everything I am saying here is true, I cant express how "real" this seemed or how fanatical my microculture was about it. I was told that anyone could be possessed with Satan. This was not a short term thing like in the moves of today, he stayed there. It was a mix of sometimes demons but it was still the same storyline. Those cults were all demon infested people, the Catholic cult, Jehovah's witnesses cult, the Morman cult. Lets just say every other even slight variation of our religion,was a cult, this was to be directly associated with the occult. </p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> I am not kidding here, I was actually told our Senior Pastor could be infected with Satan and not know it, so we had to make sure everything he said was in line with the scripture. The best person the Devil could infect was our Pastor so he could lead us all astray. I was a terrified 15 year old child in 1985.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Public Eduaction</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> There was a huge debate at the time about teaching Creation Science in public schools, now known as Intelligent design as the creationist lots major law suits during this period and simply have repackaged it under a new name. Colorado is one of the most secular states in the Union. Due to how my county was founded on coal mning as opposed to gold mining the demographics of the population is very different. I live in what is very likly to be the most, by far, religious county in the state.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> How did my school system handle the Creation Science debate? They purposly avoided teaching any science at all that might ruffle the featers of the Christians. No Evolution. Paleontology or the Big Bang was taught at all. </p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> My daughter has just started college. She did get advaced college level anatomy and physiology classes in high school. Just three days ago, no kidding, she bee bops into the living room and told her mother she learned that day that Evolution was the result of adaptation. I was stunned. I quickly interviewed both my17 y/o son and her. They had been taught nothing about the Big Bang, Evolution, or Paneontology! Nothing had changed in thirty years! They still only teach the sciences that will not be questioned by the Creationist!</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> Here I would like to give credit where it is due. I had an english teacher that gave me an assignment to write and essay and site my references. I of course wrote on Creationism. I did well on the paper ( another Young Earth Creationst teacher from that same school helped me). My references all came from the Creation Evidence Museum. She did something that perplexed me and has always stayed with me. She put a note on the paper "I don't agree with you but great job!" I couldn't understand how she could not agree, but she planted a seed, a seed that grew because I had to know why.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Not your ordinary Fundamentalist</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ7PILw8bj59OVvNjdCXDbEbQ9yhtMq4j-v-q4d3w864bjZj70U" alt="Image result for first united methodist church canon city colorado"/></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> Now finally to get to why I call myself a former Fundamentalist extremist. I really did not consider myself an extremist until about the last year. I have always focused on early Christianities in my studies and have only recently looked into the modern church. I came from the First United Methodist Church of Canon City, Colorado. Methodist are usually considered moderate, which surprised me. This was due to the time period I was involved in the church and the microculture of that particular congregation, which can vary from church to church and even within a church. This church may not be radical today.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> Creation Science</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> There was <strong>real </strong>(pseudo) science that proved Creation. The bad demon possessed, atheist, scientist just didn't want us to know it.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> Homophobia</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">They did teach "love the sinner, hate the sin" along with homos were going to rape me and give me AIDS. Mixed messages? I felt very guilty that I did not see how a man having sex with a man could be equated with raping children, But I knew I was just a stupid kid that needed to trust my elders. I was a horrible Christian as a result and deserved to go to hell (cognative dissodence really screwed with my head).</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> Allegory and Metaphor</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> We openly admitted that there was much allegory and metaphor throughout the Bible, but Fundamentalist Extremist style. Every story was litteral history, I happened exactly as written in the Bible. God orchestrated every event so that we filled with the "Holy Spirit" could understand the allegory and metaphor in the story. What happened to free will? (more cognative dissodence.)</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The End is near</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">This is basic Christian stuff but very important. The end times were at hand. If we were not perfect with God, we would be turtured for 7 years here on earth and it could happen at any moment. If we didn't thank God and come to Jesus in that seven years we would go to hell. If we were perfect we could go straght to heaven and avoid the tribulation all together. (Who was perfect? We were all sinners.)</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>How do I know I was an Extremist</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> There was no group that was too anti-abortion, too worried about Satanic cults putting Satan inside of you, too homophobic, too literal in their interpreptation of the scripture, too worried about the End Times, Too Young Earth Creationist or too anti-athiest (damn commies.) I never heard anyone complain about anyone going too far on any of these issues. Why? There was no one with any more extreme views than our own! When you can't look at anyone else and say thier views are too extreme it is because you are at the farthest end of the spectrum! It seems that no one recognizes this when they <strong>are</strong> at that extreme.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Basic Truths</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> Here is what we should teach all of our impressionable children. The atheist Commies are going to drop a nuclear bomb on our face. If that doesn't happen first the homos will rape us and give us AIDS so God can punish us. We might be infected with demons and not know it, most people are. The rapture is giong to happen any day and we would likely be turtured due to our sin, and then go to hell to do the same thing forever.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>What changed my thinking</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> There were many factors and influences that led me to become an atheist. Mostly it boiled down to constant Bible study, but there were other factors that had much influence. First of all when one is involved with cults or gangs etc. when one is removed from the posionous environment it is one of the most important factors for breakng free. At 17 while I was a junior in High School I joined the Navy. Unknown to our family at the time my fathers pituitary gland had completely shut down, he became irrational and abusive, I needed a way out, the Navy was my solution. (God wasn't helping.)</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> While in the Navy I met many people from many religions that all were convinced that they observed the one true religion. These religions conflicted with one another. They simply could not <strong>all</strong> be true. I realized that many of them belived just as faithfully as I did. We could not all be right. I had to ask myself this question. <em>Could </em>I be wrong? I knew that there was no more merit to my god than theirs. This was deeply troubling. Did I become an atheist right then? No. I became more religious. I was completely confident that I was just too stupid to know the answers, but since my God and Bible were real there was nothing to fear from the truth. I could go where ever the truth guided me and "The truth would set me free." It did, now I am an atheist.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">This did not happen over night. I was so brainwashed that it actually took about ten years before there was so much evidence that I finallly had to come to terms with he fact that I no longer believed and was in fact an atheist.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/christian_nationalism">http://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/christian_nationalism</a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.avert.org/professionals/history-hiv-aids/overview">https://www.avert.org/professionals/history-hiv-aids/overview</a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://io9.gizmodo.com/a-brief-history-of-satanic-panic-in-the-1980s-1679476373">https://io9.gizmodo.com/a-brief-history-of-satanic-panic-in-the-1980s-1679476373</a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_v._Aguillard">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_v._Aguillard</a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.creationevidence.org/">http://www.creationevidence.org/</a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://billygraham.org/answer/what-is-the-rapture/">https://billygraham.org/answer/what-is-the-rapture/</a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District</a></p>The Doomsday Clock is set to 2 minutes to midnight amid global tensionstag:atheistnexus.org,2018-01-25:2182797:BlogPost:27897792018-01-25T23:26:37.000ZCane Kostovskihttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/AtheistTech
<p></p>
<p><a href="http://bigthink.com/news/the-doomsday-clock-is-set-to-2-minutes-to-midnight-amid-global-tensions?utm_source=Daily+Newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=62b9fb46d2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_25&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_45b26faecc-62b9fb46d2-43715901" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://bigthink.com/news/the-doomsday-clock-is-set-to-2-minutes-to-midnight-amid-global-tensions?utm_source=Daily+Newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=62b9fb46d2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_25&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_45b26faecc-62b9fb46d2-43715901</a></p>
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<p>The Doomsday Clock was a relic of the past. What does it tell you that it is being used again? We have a dangerous POTUS who would be happy to end the world. It scares the shit out of me. It should scare the shit out of you. Why don't we see a public outrage against this kind of thinking? I call to everyone send Trump your heartfelt advice on NOT using nukes. WTF everyone?!?!?!?!?!</p>If I Ever Hear God's Voice, I'll Shit My Britchestag:atheistnexus.org,2018-01-23:2182797:BlogPost:27896992018-01-23T18:00:00.000ZTeresa Robertshttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/TeresaRoberts
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<p> <span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Let me begin by saying that I’ve never heard the voice of any god, demon or angel.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Never! Trust me, I’ve never even gotten a phone call from one. I’m just as relieved to tell the you the truth, because if I ever did hear the voice of a god, any god, I’d shit my britches. On the one hand, it would be the most earth shattering conversation I’ve ever had, assuming that god would let me ask a…</span></p>
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<p> <span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Let me begin by saying that I’ve never heard the voice of any god, demon or angel.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Never! Trust me, I’ve never even gotten a phone call from one. I’m just as relieved to tell the you the truth, because if I ever did hear the voice of a god, any god, I’d shit my britches. On the one hand, it would be the most earth shattering conversation I’ve ever had, assuming that god would let me ask a few questions. But even if I’m rendered speechless from wonder, I can tell you that my life would never be the same again. And, if I actually got to see god, I probably wouldn't be able to ever recover from the experience.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Lots of people that I’ve known personally claim to hear from god on a pretty regular basis.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Their casual approach to dialoguing with the creator of the universe is rather mindboggling. It leads me to believe that they know very little about the wonders of our vast universe in the first place. No one in their right mind would approach the creator of such marvels so nonchalantly and about such petty concerns otherwise. Nor would they go away and quickly forget the experience.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>My mom talked to god all the livelong day.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">She carried on casual conversations. I could hear her in the back room mumbling things, and I knew she was at it again. She’d lose her car keys and god would help her find them. She’d be worried about some earthly detail and ask god for advice. Her endless hurts inflicted upon her by my dad were often discussed with god. Sometimes, she could be heard beseeching god to drive the demons away. In my mom’s world god was her constant companion even while demons lurked in the shadows. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Yet, she had a very simplistic view of the universe, almost no knowledge of science and few explanations for the wonders of the natural world. I contend that if she had known a little bit about how things worked, she’d have been significantly humbled.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>For all the talk about hearing god’s voice, something that I think should rank higher than meeting the president or a movie star, I see very little evidence of the experience changing people’s lives.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Believers slip into these rambling often self-centered conversations with their imaginary friend far too casually and then go about their daily business making risky choices and doing foolish things. You’d think that talking to the supreme power would have more impact on their behaviors. You’d think that having had such an amazing experience, they’d gain wisdom. You’d think that there would be less fear and anxiety after meeting god in such a personal fashion.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong> But it doesn’t appear to be the case.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Instead, the devout can meet with god over breakfast and then fight with their spouses over some triviality by noon. They can brag about how they have this personal relationship with an almighty being but rely on alcohol to get them through the night. They consult with god for advice but still choose terrible life partners and raise damaged children. If knowing god in such a personal fashion has no more affect than that, I’m suspicious.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong> Of course, I don’t believe anyone, anywhere is hearing the voice of a god.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It’s far more likely that they’re simply talking to themselves. My mom did a lot of talking to herself and her children sat by and watched her. When we were tiny, we really believed that our mommy was hearing god’s voice. We took it for granted actually that her daily consultations were protecting us and helping her solve problems. We grew up to whisper a few prayers of our own. I use to make a deal with god. I promised him that I’d never ask for a favor for myself as long as he’d let me live long enough to raise my children. And, I never did. I always worried that favors might be limited and so I was very careful to save my requests for a rainy day.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Now, I look back on those days of prayer and realize that I’d been indoctrinated from birth to believe in nonsense.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It was one great, big social construct that my culture had invented and no more real than the story of Hansel and Gretel or Cinderella. Once, I managed to eradicate the god virus in my brain, which took considerable effort, I saw my mother’s conversations with god as absolutely ludicrous and even a kind of borderline child abuse.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong> It’s too damn easy for people to make these fantastical claims about hearing god’s voice and about god answering their prayers.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Once again, it’s their word against no word from god. None. I can't check out their outlandish claims by hearing god's voice for myself nor am I willing to confuse a warm fuzzy feeling with angels singing glory, glory, glory. In order to play their game, I’ve got to declare that the emperor is clothed even when it’s plain to me that he’s as naked as a jaybird.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>So I call their bluff!</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It’s no longer difficult for me to do so either, because If I ever did hear the voice of a god, demon or angel, you can bet your bottom dollar, my life would never be the same again. It would rock my world, changing me and the way I view life beyond recognition. Unlike those who carelessly claim to hear from a god every day of their unimpressive lives, I can give a hypothetical god her proper place in the universe knowing full well that to hear her voice would be a miracle.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Until I do hear her voice, I can be pretty sure that no one else is hearing from her either. Guess what? It’s been pretty quiet out there in the great beyond for a long time.</strong></span></p>What If You had to Dance the Polka to Get to Heaven?tag:atheistnexus.org,2018-01-19:2182797:BlogPost:27891782018-01-19T20:00:00.000ZTeresa Robertshttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/TeresaRoberts
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Once again, I'm bringing Debunking Christianity, a website belonging to John Loftus to my blog. I am now a regular guest writer on John's site and proud to be part of his continuing dedication to debunking religion and its harmful effects on humankind.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">This week, I wrote an article about the persistent belief in heaven and hell. Although often full of conflicting ideas about what these two places might be…</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Once again, I'm bringing Debunking Christianity, a website belonging to John Loftus to my blog. I am now a regular guest writer on John's site and proud to be part of his continuing dedication to debunking religion and its harmful effects on humankind.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">This week, I wrote an article about the persistent belief in heaven and hell. Although often full of conflicting ideas about what these two places might be like, human's have carried the overpowering desire to believe in myths and fairy tales well into the 21st century. The myth about what happens after we die certainly prevails.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I hope you take the time to follow the link and leave a comment either on John's site or right here on my blog. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Cheers and happy debunking ...</span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.debunking-christianity.com/2018/01/what-if-you-had-to-dance-polka-to-get.html#more" target="_blank" rel="noopener">What If You Had to Dance the Polka to Get to Heaven?</a></p>Religion is pure poison disguised as hope. How has religion harmed you?tag:atheistnexus.org,2018-01-18:2182797:BlogPost:27892672018-01-18T23:26:00.000ZCane Kostovskihttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/AtheistTech
<p>I personally haven't been harmed by religion. I have been an Atheist all my life, but didn't have the label Atheist till I was an adult. I have heard many stories where Atheists were harmed because of their lack of belief in the supernatural. I was wondering how many of you here have been harmed by religion and how you were harmed?</p>
<p>I personally haven't been harmed by religion. I have been an Atheist all my life, but didn't have the label Atheist till I was an adult. I have heard many stories where Atheists were harmed because of their lack of belief in the supernatural. I was wondering how many of you here have been harmed by religion and how you were harmed?</p>Five Things I Wish God Had Told Us Long Agotag:atheistnexus.org,2018-01-13:2182797:BlogPost:27888742018-01-13T17:30:00.000ZTeresa Robertshttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/TeresaRoberts
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I started pestering my parents when I was just a kid with questions about why god as our heavenly father would withhold life-saving information from his creation. Needless to say, they never had an answer that satisfied me even back then. Those questions linger, popping up from time to time in adult conversations that I have with friends. To this day, no good answers have been provided. So, I wrote an article for Debunking Christianity where I listed…</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I started pestering my parents when I was just a kid with questions about why god as our heavenly father would withhold life-saving information from his creation. Needless to say, they never had an answer that satisfied me even back then. Those questions linger, popping up from time to time in adult conversations that I have with friends. To this day, no good answers have been provided. So, I wrote an article for Debunking Christianity where I listed five things that I wish god had told his children ages ago. Click the link to read the article and feel free to list a few major godly oversights that you think should be added to the list.</span></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.debunking-christianity.com/2018/01/five-things-i-wish-god-had-told-us-long.html#disqus_thread" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Five Things I Wish God Had Told Us Long Ago</a></p>What Would It Take to Believe?tag:atheistnexus.org,2018-01-09:2182797:BlogPost:27881152018-01-09T14:10:13.000ZLoren Millerhttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/LorenMiller
<p>How many times have we heard it:<br></br> <br></br> “What would it take for you to accept that god exists?”<br></br> <br></br> Answers from atheists to this question have been many and varied. In an interview with Randy Frazee of the Oak Hills Church of San Antonio, Texas, Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta said that a personal experience might convince him. Various others, including Matt Dillahunty, have proposed that Yahweh himself knows what it would take to dissuade him from his apostasy, but as of yet has…</p>
<p>How many times have we heard it:<br/> <br/> “What would it take for you to accept that god exists?”<br/> <br/> Answers from atheists to this question have been many and varied. In an interview with Randy Frazee of the Oak Hills Church of San Antonio, Texas, Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta said that a personal experience might convince him. Various others, including Matt Dillahunty, have proposed that Yahweh himself knows what it would take to dissuade him from his apostasy, but as of yet has not deigned to do so. Doubtless other atheists have other answers, up to and including the bold assertion that there is nothing that could induce them to accept the existence of a supernatural being which created the universe, a position as unfounded and wrongheaded as that of believers that such a being has to exist. With that as prologue, I would like to proffer my own answer as to what would at least suggest to me that belief in a deity had something resembling justification.<br/> <br/> There are principles in this world which are so reliable that the average person takes them for granted. Things like the sun rising in the morning or that their car will start and take them safely to work. Being college educated in the sciences, I have a better than average understanding of some of the scientific principles behind the seeming movements of the sun and what conditions allow my Mustang to spring to life when I press the “START” button. Since my degree is in electrical engineering, I put considerable weight in one particular principle which I perceive to be not just fundamental but foundational to electricity and electronics: Ohm’s Law.<br/> <br/> Ohm’s Law states a simple relationship between three parameters: voltage, current, and resistance and asserts a direct relationship between them: V = IR. If resistance is held constant in an electrical circuit and current is varied, voltage will also vary in direct proportion to the current. Any variation of any of the other two parameters, will cause one or both to alter. Resistance tends to be the constant in these instances, but apply enough current or voltage to a resistor and eventually a smell extremely familiar to electronic tinkerers will tell you that the 100-Ohm device you are working with has been altered by that event, and even then, whatever the value of that now-burnt resistor, Ohm’s Law still holds for it.<br/> <br/> The proof I want for a posited god would be equivalent to the certainty I have for the above-mentioned principle of physics: consistent demonstrability. For me to understand that a god is indeed part of our reality, whatever mechanism or method is used in confirming its <em>bona fides</em> should be as reliable as Ohm’s Law and repeatable not just for me but ANYONE. That confirmation technique should work anywhere, under any circumstances, for any audience and yield precisely the same result: that the specified being does, in fact, exist. No hand-waving, prayer, or unsubstantiated belief need apply. If I am to accept what is currently an outrageous, antiquated, and ill-conceived notion as a creator-god being the first cause of reality as we know it, <em>my understanding of that being’s existence would have to be as inalterable and certain as my grasp of Ohm’s Law</em>.<br/> <br/> My attitude finds welcome support as regards this little thought experiment:<br/> <br/> <em>I don’t want to believe; I want to <u>know</u></em>.<br/> -- Carl Sagan<br/> <br/> <em>If you can’t show it, you don’t know it</em>.<br/> -- Aron Ra<br/> <br/> <em>If you’ve got the truth, you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn’t prove it. <u>Show</u> people</em>.<br/> -- Robert A. Heinlein<br/> <br/> Obviously, what I’ve been talking about is the argument from evidence. Unfortunately for the opposition, they have put forward virtually every argument possible EXCEPT one from evidence. The reason for this is childishly simple: they have none.<br/> <br/> And until they find some (an event as unlikely as a violation of Ohm’s Law), they won’t have me.</p>Traveling Lighttag:atheistnexus.org,2018-01-04:2182797:BlogPost:27877122018-01-04T18:30:00.000ZTeresa Robertshttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/TeresaRoberts
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<p> <span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>One morning, I woke up and said to myself, “I want to travel the world.”</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So, I sold everything that I owned and traveled the world for several years. That decision changed my life. Thirteen years later, I winter in Spain and am still crossing off places to explore from my bucket list. As an “untourist” I’ve learned so much about other countries, things I never would’ve known if I’d merely…</span></p>
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<p> <span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>One morning, I woke up and said to myself, “I want to travel the world.”</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So, I sold everything that I owned and traveled the world for several years. That decision changed my life. Thirteen years later, I winter in Spain and am still crossing off places to explore from my bucket list. As an “untourist” I’ve learned so much about other countries, things I never would’ve known if I’d merely taken a cruise or stayed in hotels or resorts. My horizons were broadened and my world view altered, forever. Over time, I also tapped into my own inner resources, figuring out how to travel cheaply and with greater ease. One of the biggest breakthroughs was learning how to travel light.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <strong>Less is more, I soon discovered.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> If I wanted to honor the old hippie lady living inside of me, I had to disentangle myself from too many encumbrances. That started with selling my house, car and 98% of all of my worldly belongings and culminated with knowing how to pack light. Whether I’m on the road for a week or eight months, I only carry a small backpack. It has to fit under the seat in front of me or in the overhead bin. That forces me to think long and hard about every item that goes into my bag. It must pass a bag-worthy test in order to earn a spot next to my two pairs of pants, four shirts and Teva sandals.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <strong>Over time, I mastered the art of traveling light and suddenly travel became so much easier. </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> No more standing in lines waiting for my suitcase to unload on the carousel. No strange looks from the cab driver as he hoists my heavy suitcase into the trunk of his car. No need to ask an unassuming stranger to help me lift my suitcase from the bin. I just grab my backpack and I’m on my way to the next adventure. I don’t have to think about how to pack any longer. Any time I’m ready to take off, I know exactly what to leave behind and what to take. People are in awe of my ability to cling so lightly to stuff and things.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <strong>But Wait! There’s more.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Soon, I began to notice that getting rid of unnecessary baggage could apply to lots of different scenarios in life. While I was learning to travel with less, I also started going through the storage closets in my brain. It was a spontaneous exercise that I believe was jumpstarted by getting rid of most of my personal possessions before I left the country. Suddenly, the mental clutter began to reveal itself, too. I identified a lot of junk and trivia that was taking up far too much space in my head, keeping me from being as free as I longed to be. Outdated ideas, cultural constraints, myths about what life is or should be were being pulled out of the dusty cobwebs of my mind where the light of day could help me sort through them. Much of it was pretty harmless. Some of it, however, had interfered with my ability to experience a more carefree existence. A fair amount of the garbage was nothing more than silly expectations that my own culture had foisted upon me long before I was old enough to think for myself. I’d carried these expectations around for years merely thinking that was just the way things were<strong>.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong> </strong><strong>One of the biggest bits of junk that was cluttering my brain was religion.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Don’t get me wrong, I hadn’t gone to church for years. After growing up in a cult, I left home and never had the desire to become a card-carrying member of a religious club again. It didn’t once occur to me to explore other religions. I was an apathetic agnostic, not terribly interested in what other religious people believed in as long as I didn’t have to do it. Yet, there were remnants of my religious notions still clinging to the walls of my brain. While wandering, they dropped away one by one leaving me completely free of the god virus. Maybe because borders were open to me, my mind was more open as well. Maybe the contrast of cultures allowed me to take a peek at the limitations my own culture had placed upon me. I don’t know, but I was an unabashed atheist at last and comfortable in my own skin being one. What an immense relief. The new me emerged. I was out of debt, had no stuff to look after and the god virus had been completely purged from my system. I felt like I was sixteen with money in my pocket. The whole experience was life altering from start to finish.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <strong>After freeing myself from so much baggage, I began to realize that If there’s an easy way or a hard way to do something, humans tend to choose the hard way.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> We load ourselves down with far too much in life, often just because that’s what everyone else is doing. We marry too young, have children for the wrong reasons, buy things we don’t need, create a mountain of responsibilities, hang on to old belief systems that are harmful to us, bury ourselves in debt and cling to traditions that often never served a useful purpose but sure as hell kept us from experiencing life fully. In one form or another, it all became a part of our massive baggage collection.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <strong>Then, we proceeded to haul it around with us for the entirety of our lives.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Have you ever been in an airport and seen a fellow traveler with one of those giant carts loaded down with suitcases, golf clubs, purses, bags and packages. They are literally so overburdened with stuff that they can’t even pay a visit to the bathroom. They look frazzled, tired, frustrated and like they desperately need to pee. That’s what life does to most of us. That picture is the best visual reminder of what I want to avoid. Trust me, it’s tricky business trying to travel light through life. There aren’t a lot of us. We’ve got to be hypervigilant or before we know it we will become buried up to our necks again. Most people will never dig their way out in the first place.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <strong>I was lucky.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> I woke up one morning and said, “I want to travel the world.” And, so I did. Along the way, I’ve seen some fascinating places, enjoyed exotic foods, watched the sun set over the Mediterranean Sea, gotten lost with free-range sheep on an Irish peninsula, lived on three different islands, wandered the narrow kissing streets of old world cities and learned to travel light. It changed my life.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <em>Teresa Roberts is an author, world traveler and dedicated myth buster. Her recent book - Have We Been Screwed? Trading Freedom for Fairy Tales - can be purchased on Amazon.</em> <em> </em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em><a href="http://amzn.to/2wDEabD">http://amzn.to/2wDEabD</a></em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>Religion Has Been Harming Children for Centuriestag:atheistnexus.org,2018-01-04:2182797:BlogPost:27878572018-01-04T15:30:00.000ZTeresa Robertshttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/TeresaRoberts
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I'm honored to have been invited to be a regular contributor of Debunking Christianity, a website belonging to the sensational Christian apologist turned atheist, John Loftus. John has published many books. He's a religious myth buster extraordinaire. My first article was published a few days ago. It's entitled:…</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I'm honored to have been invited to be a regular contributor of Debunking Christianity, a website belonging to the sensational Christian apologist turned atheist, John Loftus. John has published many books. He's a religious myth buster extraordinaire. My first article was published a few days ago. It's entitled:</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.debunking-christianity.com/2018/01/religion-has-been-harming-children-for.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Religion Has Been Harming Children for Centuries</a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Follow the above link to read it!</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>This was an easy write for me as I've been an advocate for children's rights for years.</strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I'm thoroughly convinced that religion is an impediment to social progress. There may be no place easier to see this phenomenon play out than when it comes to allowing our children, the weakest among us, the same rights as we do adults. Yet, in a day and age when secular society has concluded that it's wrong to hit our spouse, we continue to fight for the right to hit our kids. It's fair to say that Americans have even reached collective consensus that we don't need to beat our dogs in order to train them. The belief in the humane treatment of animals has thankfully over time become normalized in our society, a perfect example of cultural expectations being greatly influenced by secular morality. Yet, our children are still waiting. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Please consider opening the above link and reading my first article on Debunking Christianity. You can comment on John's website or right here or both. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Cheers</span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Teresa</span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>Teresa Roberts is a myth buster by trade. At eighteen she escaped the religious cult of her childhood, but soon learned that society at large also expected her to conform. She has spent her life debunking the myths, fairy tales and cultural expectations that limit the creative process. Turns out almost everything they told us was a lie. Her recent published book - <a href="http://amzn.to/2wDEabD">Have We Been Screwed? Trading Freedom for Fairy Tales</a>- can be purchased on Amazon. </i></span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"></p>Faith (especially Religious Faith) = Ignorance, by all definitions.tag:atheistnexus.org,2018-01-03:2182797:BlogPost:27879212018-01-03T04:30:00.000ZDyslexic's DOGhttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/DislexicDoggy
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Faith in all its definitions, even non-religious definitions is a form of deliberate ignorance. </strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Faith: (Oxford Dictionary).</strong></span></p>
<h3 class="ps pos"><span class="pos">NOUN</span></h3>
<h3 class="ps pos">1&gt; <span class="ind" style="font-size: 12pt;">Complete trust or confidence in someone or…</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Faith in all its definitions, even non-religious definitions is a form of deliberate ignorance. </strong></span></p>
<p>======================================================</p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Faith: (Oxford Dictionary).</strong></span></p>
<h3 class="ps pos"><span class="pos">NOUN</span></h3>
<h3 class="ps pos">1&gt; <span class="ind" style="font-size: 12pt;">Complete trust or confidence in someone or something.</span></h3>
<h3 class="ps pos"><em style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">‘this restores one's faith in politicians’ </span> </em></h3>
<h3 class="ps pos">2&gt;<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> <span class="ind" style="font-size: 12pt;">Strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof.</span></span></h3>
<h3 class="ps pos"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em> ‘bereaved people who have shown supreme faith’</em></span></h3>
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<p><span class="subsenseIteration">2.1&gt; </span><span class="grammatical_note">count noun</span> <span class="ind">A particular religion.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.17em;"><em> ‘the Christian faith’</em></span></p>
<p><span class="subsenseIteration">2.2&gt; </span><span class="grammatical_note">count noun</span> <span class="ind">A strongly held belief.</span></p>
<div class="examples"></div>
<div class="synonyms"><div class="moreInfo"><span style="font-size: 1.17em;"><em>‘men with strong political faiths’</em></span></div>
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<div class="moreInfo"><i>@ 1: Can be perceived as Deliberate Ignorance: To hold faith in someone or somebody means you did not investigate them as if you investigated or tested them first, you would know or have knowledge of whether any trust in them was valid, and thus you would Know to Trust them, and have Knowledge that they would do the job. </i></div>
<div class="moreInfo"><i>Knowledge is always better than Faith.</i></div>
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<div class="moreInfo"><i>In debates they often attack me with the line: "Surely you have faith that your wife loves you?" </i></div>
<div class="moreInfo"><i>To which I reply: I know she loves me, because I have lots of evidence.</i></div>
<div class="moreInfo"><i>So I have knowledge, not faith.</i></div>
<div class="moreInfo"></div>
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<div class="moreInfo"></div>
<div class="moreInfo"><i>This is a common attack from the Religious Apologists (liars) when debating 'Faith'. </i></div>
<div class="moreInfo"><i>They are committing a false equivalency or equivocation fallacy.</i></div>
<div class="moreInfo"><i>Because they are trying to claim that their 'Faith' is definition 1, when it is actually definition 2 ( obvious ignorance ) that they consistently practise.</i></div>
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<div class="moreInfo">So somebody who has faith in another was too ignorant to bother to investigate somebody that was doing something for you, so you had faith in them instead of actual knowledge, a better word than Faith is still "Trust" or "Knowledge". Thus Deliberate Ignorance.</div>
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<div class="moreInfo">@ 2: Automatically translates as Deliberate Ignorance, in that that the proponents deliberately choose feelings and wishful thinking over evidence. </div>
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<div class="moreInfo">Though when Arguing with the Religious, they always mean definition (2), because if they try to argue the "Deep Trust" in definition (1) remind them that they are claiming deep trust in an Unknown, and thus (1) cannot apply and they are committing an Equivocation Fallacy, because they are fudging the discussion. </div>
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<div class="moreInfo">Religious Faith is always Deliberate Ignorance! :-D~ </div>
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<div class="moreInfo">Faith = Ignorance,</div>
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<div class="moreInfo">Just as Theology = Make-Believe</div>
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<div class="moreInfo">Which is why Theology is no longer considered a part of Philosophy, in fact it is actually Anti-Philosophy.</div>
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<div class="moreInfo">Just watch any of Peter Kreeft's ( supposedly a philosophy professor ) videos on PragerU and you will instantly see why Theology ( his points) are no longer valid in Philosophy. :D </div>
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<div class="moreInfo">Kreeft would have failed Philosophy 101 in all his videos.</div>
<div class="moreInfo">Commits a fallacy at least every several seconds.</div>
<div class="moreInfo">Hardly a qualified philosophy teacher.</div>
<div class="moreInfo">Yet Boston College employs him to teach philosophy.</div>
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<div class="moreInfo">Boston is one college to avoid if you want good training in philosophy. </div>
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</div>Greed is an Obsessive-Compulsive Neurosistag:atheistnexus.org,2018-01-02:2182797:BlogPost:27871102018-01-02T04:16:30.000ZV.N.K.Kumarhttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/VNKKumar
<p>ARE HUMANS NATURALLY GREEDY?</p>
<p>Short Answer:<br></br> Yes. Many humans have a desire to accumulate things more than what they need or deserve.</p>
<p>Long Answer:<br></br> It can not be denied that some people are more ‘Greedy’ than others. People act in a greedy way for different reasons. Of course there are the megalomaniacs and narcissists who are completely self-obsessed, just as there are the completely selfless martyrs.</p>
<p>For every Vijay Mallya there is a Mother Theresa ( Taking…</p>
<p>ARE HUMANS NATURALLY GREEDY?</p>
<p>Short Answer:<br/> Yes. Many humans have a desire to accumulate things more than what they need or deserve.</p>
<p>Long Answer:<br/> It can not be denied that some people are more ‘Greedy’ than others. People act in a greedy way for different reasons. Of course there are the megalomaniacs and narcissists who are completely self-obsessed, just as there are the completely selfless martyrs.</p>
<p>For every Vijay Mallya there is a Mother Theresa ( Taking Indian examples familiar to me)</p>
<p>But those types are few and far between. Most of us only act greedy in response to our needs not being met. Abraham Maslow studied this phenomenon in great detail and created the Hierarchy of Human Needs.</p>
<p>When a person does not have enough food to survive, he will go to any length to fulfill that need. Physiological needs like the need to breathe, eat food, wear clothing and find shelter must be fulfilled. Once they are met, we move onto the need for safety, then the need to be loved or to belong, then esteem needs and finally self-actualization. But people are only desperate and ‘greedy’ toward the bottom of the hierarchy, when their physiological needs, safety needs and the need to be loved are not met.</p>
<p>A person who does not feel safe is deficiency motivated. They are desperate because something is missing. When these needs are met and they move toward the top of the hierarchy, they are not deficiency motivated, they are growth motivated. A growth motivated person can afford to be giving and generous without the fear of losing what little they have.</p>
<p>THE VARIOUS FORMS OF GREED</p>
<p>1. GREED FOR POWER<br/> In the history of humankind you have many people who were obsessed with acquiring power for power’s sake: Alexander, Chengez Khan, Napolean, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, The Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceausescu, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.</p>
<p>We all know what happened to all of them. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Their lives was ridden with anxiety, insecurity &amp; paranoia. Peace for them came only with their deaths.</p>
<p>2. GREED FOR MONEY<br/> Governments wish to increase all kinds of taxes, overtly to provide better services to the people but covertly to pay themselves higher salaries. Companies wish to incorporate in the CAYMAN ISLANDS to avoid paying taxes. The Vijay Mallyas want to make money by swindling banks. Politicians who waste the hard-earned tax-payer’s money by conducting ‘Official business’ at Resort destinations &amp; travelling globally to various countries ostensibly to study how that country is performing in that area but covertly treating it as a holiday trip for themselves &amp; their families. Lastly, the Common man shows his greed by gambling and compulsively buying lottery tickets anticipating quick windfalls only to commit suicide thereafter.</p>
<p>3. GREED FOR POSSESSIONS &amp; STATUS SYMBOLS <br/> Antilia is a private home in South Mumbai, India. It is owned by Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries, which includes a staff of 600 to maintain the residence 24X7.</p>
<p>It is deemed to be the world's most expensive residential property, after Buckingham Palace, which is designated as a crown property. It is thus the world's most expensive private residential property, valued over $1 billion. Its controversial design and ostentatious use by a single family has made it famous across the world, with severe criticism and mockery in popular media.</p>
<p>Some Indians are proud of the "ostentatious house", while others see it as "shameful in a nation where many children go hungry". Dipankar Gupta, a sociologist at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, opined that "such wealth can be inconceivable" not only in Mumbai, "home to some of the Asia's worst slums", but also in a nation with 42 percent of the world's underweight children younger than five.</p>
<p>Tata Group former chairman Ratan Tata said Antilia is an example of rich Indians' lack of empathy for the poor Tata also said: "The person who lives in there should be concerned about what he sees around him and asking if he can make a difference. If he is not, then it's sad because this country needs people to allocate some of their enormous wealth to finding ways of mitigating the hardship that people have."</p>
<p>There are other multi-millionnares who in addition to a big bungalow, collect the latest cars, home theater, helicopter &amp; helipad, Yacht and a private Greek Island.</p>
<p>There is a theory explaining why these do not lead to unadulterated happiness. It is called Adaptation Theory ( Hedonic Treadmill or Habituation).</p>
<p>Let us take a few examples of sensory or physiological adaptation</p>
<p>* Smoke-filled room : The smoker gets used to the stench but if you are a non-smoker, you will get a shock as you enter the room.</p>
<p>* Tin shacks besides Railway Tracks : The people living in them can sleep quite well because they get habituated to the noise and vibrations. In fact if there is a railway strike, they will have sleepless nights.</p>
<p>* This is also the reason we don't feel our new spectacles, dentures or underwear after some time.</p>
<p>Reason : When sensory receptors are exposed to the same stimulus over and over again, they quickly get bored and stop firing. This makes sense. The brain is an efficient organ, most interested in the novel and new. If we paid attention to everything, we would quickly be overwhelmed by the hulking intensity of reality.</p>
<p>Humans are adaptable creatures. This has been a definite advantage to our species during assorted Ice ages, Plagues, Wars and their aftermath.</p>
<p>But that's also why you are never all that satisfied for long, when good fortune comes your way.</p>
<p>While earning more makes you happy in the short-term, you quickly adjust to your new wealth and everything it buys for you. Yes, you do get a thrill at first from a shiny new car or a big screen Plasma TV set. But you soon get used to them, a state of running in place that Economists call " The Hedonic Treadmill ".</p>
<p>When you imagine how much you are going to enjoy a new purchase, a new car/ new saree / new book ( For my sons/wife/myself respectively), what we are imagining is the happiness you might get on the day you get it. When these acquisitions lose that ability to make your heart go 'pitter-patter', you tend to draw the wrong conclusions : Instead of questioning the idea that you can buy happiness with a new car, saree or book, you begin to question the correctness of your choice of the stuff. So you pin your hopes on a new car etc., to get the ultimate bliss, only to be disappointed again.</p>
<p>4. GREED FOR AN EVERLASTING CAREFREE LIFE<br/> People do not want to think that death is the end of their life. They hanker after eternity and wish to live forever as a happy soul in a Heaven under the paternal care of benevolent god(s) notwithstanding the atrocities they might have committed towards humanity. They desperately want a carefree afterlife. And hence they donate to temple hundis, make crowns of gold &amp; diamonds and gift it to the gods &amp; goddesses to ensure this. It's intriguing how eager people are to go to heaven and how certain they are that they will be very happy there for eternity when after retiring from work, they are not able to beat boredom and make themselves optimally happy even in the 20-30 years they have at their disposal post-retirement on earth.</p>
<p>END NOTE<br/> There seems to be no end to the diverse kinds of greed that humans have. Buddha said that desire &amp; greed are the root causes of unhappiness. But who bothers to listen?! People seem to prefer more -- power, money, possessions / status symbols &amp; an assured afterlife, to happiness.</p>
<p> </p>The Bible is Behind the Timestag:atheistnexus.org,2017-12-29:2182797:BlogPost:27840092017-12-29T16:00:00.000ZTeresa Robertshttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/TeresaRoberts
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>I didn't grow up celebrating Xmas.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">My religious parents considered it a pagan holiday, along with Easter and all other holidays. We did, however, get a small gift for our birthdays. One year, my annual gift was a bible with my name engraved upon it. I had waited all year for my one gift and this was what I got, a bible. I must admit, I was a tad disappointed, but I smiled and graciously accepted it…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>I didn't grow up celebrating Xmas.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">My religious parents considered it a pagan holiday, along with Easter and all other holidays. We did, however, get a small gift for our birthdays. One year, my annual gift was a bible with my name engraved upon it. I had waited all year for my one gift and this was what I got, a bible. I must admit, I was a tad disappointed, but I smiled and graciously accepted it from my parents.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>When I left home and was excommunicated from the church and my family, I took my bible with me, one of a few personal possession that I had.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Several years later, my border collie drug it off the shelf one day while I was away from home and tore it to shreds. I came home to find it scattered in pieces all over the living room floor. It made me feel weird. My conditioning throughout childhood to consider this book as a special, even holy collection of words, still clung to me. It was going to take a few more years to get rid of the god virus my brain had been infected with.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Yet, deep inside I already knew that the bible was just paper and print with no magical powers and as it turns out very little true wisdom.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">After one removes the magic and miracles from the bible as Thomas Jefferson did, the next step would be to ignore all the bad bits that no longer jive with the progression of morality in modern societies. The support of slavery, the oppression of women, the beating of children, genocide and torture are finally being defined by secular societies as inhumane, cruel and unjust behaviors, making the bible harder and harder to admire.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Liberal Christians are currently forced to bend over backwards to align their progressive attitudes with the very book that they claim is the foundation of their entire religious belief system.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">That's a problem for them and when you can catch them taking a breath between their strenuous efforts to explain away these horrendous bits of the bible, they appear unable to reconcile the glaring hypocrisy of their religious convictions.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Finally, when one goes on to remove the fluff, the inconsequential verses that often don't even add interest to the story element, the words that offer no wisdom and sometimes even seem so foolishly behind the times as to be obviously and glaringly irrelevant, any merit the book itself might have quickly dwindles.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>What are we left with?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">We are left with a few parables that Jesus delivered about loving thy neighbor as thyself and acts of charity to the poor and less fortunate, a compassionate way of living that when put into practice could make life an easier prospect. Yet, most people, religious or not, can barely manage to live charitably as a family let alone as a community. If all the religious people in the world could practice this and lead by example, there would be fewer wars, less poverty, fewer divorces, less broken individuals, more secure and happier children and safer communities.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>The humanist understands this.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">They have accepted the fact that if a hungry child is to be fed another human must see to it. Prayer is not a productive way to solve problems, only our actions fix problems and get the job done. Furthermore, most humanists are appalled at the horrors of the scriptures which are far to oppressive for the modern, progressive and enlightened mind to embrace.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The bible is indeed a very outdated book. It does not stand up well to the test of time. The very progress that societies have struggled to achieve is not supported by the holy scriptures.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>The bible has, instead, served as an impediment to social progress. </strong></span></p>
<p><em><span class="font-size-3">I'm a myth buster. My recent published book - Have We Been Screwed? Trading Freedom for Fairy Tales - can be purchased on Amazon.</span> </em></p>
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